Access to Justice, Moral Distance and Changing Demands on Law

24 Pages Posted: 6 Oct 2020

See all articles by Roger Cotterrell

Roger Cotterrell

Queen Mary University of London, School of Law

Date Written: September 2020

Abstract

This paper reflects theoretically on the concept of access to justice – focusing in turn on each of its limbs – the idea of justice and that of access. ‘Justice’ is considered here not philosophically but socio-legally in terms of a spectrum of types of justice-demands made in relation to law. The idea of ‘access’ is analysed by drawing on socio-legal theory concerned with the remoteness of lawmakers from citizens. The aim is to put the concept of access to justice into a wide theoretical context that highlights changing demands on law and new socio-legal conditions – especially those associated with contemporary multiculturalism and the increasingly significant transnational dimensions of law. The paper argues that these demands and conditions make such a wide view timely and necessary. It proposes that an analysis of relations of law and solidarity taken from Durkheimian sociology can help in clarifying the possibilities and limits of state receptiveness to access to justice demands.

Keywords: Access to justice, solidarity, Durkheim, justice, regulatory distance, communication, cultural diversity, democracy

Suggested Citation

Cotterrell, Roger, Access to Justice, Moral Distance and Changing Demands on Law (September 2020). Queen Mary Law Research Paper No. 340. Published in (2019) 36 Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice 193-209. , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3705192

Roger Cotterrell (Contact Author)

Queen Mary University of London, School of Law ( email )

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